Adam Clay (Sam Huntington) is a freshman at college whose goal is to score. His goal becomes Amanda (Kaitlin Doubleday). Amanda belongs to a wicked sorority. Her initiation task is to find a gay male and break his heart. Adam pretends he is gay to get close to Amanda. Neither knows the truth about each other.Adam pretending to be gay is the main humor of the film. The film had a number of humorous moments and overall I enjoyed it in spite of none of the characters being real or done particularly well, other than John Goodman playing a gay bar tender.A similar film is "Chicks Dig Gay Guys" although it is not one I recommend.Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity (3 uncredited)

The premise alone reeks of desperation: Determined college freshman Matt (a likable performance by Sam Huntington) pretends to be gay so he can score with the sweet and enticing Amanda (a charming portrayal by the fetching Kaitlin Doubleday). Sound hilarious? Well, it just ain't. Writer/director Ryan Shiraki pours on the crude and idiotic jokes about puking, farting, masturbation, and attempted date rape with an excruciatingly heavy hand, thus ensuring that said jokes elicit groans instead of laughs. Moreover, the characters are generic one-note stereotypes (snarky sorority bitch, stuck-up frat stud, abrasive lesbian, and so on) and the narrative follows a straight down the line predictable trajectory in which various folks learn the truth about themselves and become better people in the process. In addition, it's downright painful to see such talented cast members as Heather Matarazzo (saddled with an unbearably obnoxious character) and John Goodman (surprisingly bubbly and amusing as a friendly gay bartender) wasted on the sophomoric material. While this movie unfolds at a snappy enough pace and has a few moments of genuine heart, it's overall about as funny as slowly dying from colon cancer.

I'm not sure what the sexuality is of the director/writer of Freshman Orientation (Or, Home of Phobia), Ryan Shiraki, but after watching this "feel-good" about being gay movie, my suspicion is that he's straight and did all the research on that opposite "lifestyle" to make this movie. Much like, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (made afterward), both movies throw every cliché, every "Dorothy" comment, every stereotype in as if they just read a bunch of old Advocate magazines and took notes.That's not to say it was a bad movie, in fact, Freshman Orientation was a relatively sweet movie at times, thanks to Huntington (which was interesting to see him away from his (probably) one-time stint as Jimmy Olsen) and Doubleday. Sure, it was filled with said clichés both with the homosexual references and the college types, predictable as all Hades and a tad bit uneven, and yet, I would recommend for a slow movie night.Clay (Huntington) arrives at college to meet all the usual suspects in these college-dayz movies. Amanda (Doubleday) says goodbye to her familiar drunk single, stuck-up mother and arrives at her sorority house of the normal smiling bitches. She gets taken by the boring ladies down her path to find & humiliate a "fag" to pledge herself while Clay and new friend, Matt (Erwin), try to join the fraternity brothers and WHAM!, the two stories collide.Clay's mistaken for gay and is used for her sorority sister prank while he uses her to, well, just get laid by acting gay. He must learn to "be gay" to get the girl, if that makes any sense while she must learn to open up to someone and reject her stuck-up lifestyle. Meanwhile, Clay's roommate, Matt, must learn to accept his homosexuality (sure, that's supposed to be a secret, but it's blatantly obvious from the get-go) and come to feelings he has for Clay.Sure, the conclusion is seen a mile away and writer Shiraki must have known that too, because a lot was put into the finale, including some hideous lovey-dovey relationship between the straights and the gays after a faux pas gay-bashing subplot. Weird ending, and makes you despise activists, but it's not a "straight" forward movie to begin with.Recommended, slightly, for the touching portrayals from the actors. Not groundbreaking, but at least its heart's in the right place.

A fair-to-middling low-budget comedy, "Freshman Orientation" has some good-natured fun lampooning the stereotypes and clichés of college life. Kewpie-faced Clay Adams is an undergrad frat pledge who pretends to be gay in order to snag the girl of his dreams. Just how this paradoxical turn-of-events comes about need not be reiterated here. Suffice it to say that it involves fraternity and sorority initiation pranks that wind up at cross purposes with one another.Suffering from its own case of identity confusion, director Ryan Shiraki's screenplay reinforces stereotypes even as it's working hard to beat those stereotypes down. Gays, in particular, may find themselves evenly divided between encouragement and dismay over how they are portrayed in this film.Still, there are enough moments of loopy charm to make the film worth seeing on a slow, rainy afternoon, and Sam Huntington and Kaitlin Doubleday have appeal and charisma to spare as Clay and his girl. And, as an added bonus, they are joined by John Goodman and Rachel Dratch in minor supporting roles.